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Christopher Hampson,
A Concerto is Born | |||||||
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Christopher Hampson, a dancer and young choreographer with ENB, has been keeping a diary for us since November 97. Initially he covered the creation of his new ballet ‘Country Garden’ but now he has lots and lots of other things on the go including the premier of his new piece...
Here is a link to the previous column in the series.
5th April 1999 Jane Pritchard is one of two archivists that work at ENB. It's only in the past three years have I truly discovered her true worth. Just before the premiere of Concerto Grosso in Crewe, Jane came to a rehearsal in a community centre in Oxford. When it was not housing a choreographer and a new creation, this edifice normally hosted English lessons for the local Chinese Community. It was a bad space full of uninspired and tired dancers. After an un-nerving rehearsal, Jane asked to have a chat about the new work. Sure, why?, I asked. She explained that in Crewe and other venues she was giving pre-performance talks. My heart sank for both of us - I had an un-finished ballet that was not coming together, and she wanted background information that I was too depressed to talk about. She might as well have asked Karen Carpenter what her favourite food was. The rehearsal, I explained, was pretty useless to base anything on, as the dancers couldn't do any movements full-out in the confined space, so I had to put into words firstly what she would have seen, and secondly where it had all come from. The more I talked, the more my head cleared, and after a therapeutic fifteen minutes, I came away with a clear, focused view of what I was doing and Jane left with material for her pre-performance talk. By the end of the dress-rehearsal in Crewe I was already having the now familiar feeling of being a spare part in my own creation. Choreographers just get in the way at premieres. It's like cooking - there's only so many times you can baste a chicken. I'm sure dancers look at me the same way as that chicken must look at the chef - "you've rubbed salt in my skin, put my neck out and shoved me under hot lights - now, piss off and let me cook!" The Pollo Grosso I served on opening night in Crewe was, for my taste, a little undercooked, but even only two shows later it was looking and tasting a lot better - and no blood around the bones. Leaving the auditorium, I bourréed into Jane Pritchard and I asked her how her pre-performance talk had gone. It had been noisy, coinciding as it did with soundchecks going on back-stage. She'd had enough material to do something on the new ballet, but talking about the music and the abstractness of the ballet presented more of a problem for the audience (these are half-hour talks, not lectures). After hearing what she had to say and discussing the ballet and the music with other people, I decided it might help the audience to get an insight into the creation of Concerto Grosso if I spoke myself. So on my birthday in Cheltenham, I offered my services. I enjoyed the opportunity of talking with the audience, so I'm doing more of these talks (Cambridge and Crawley). Shame I didn't know about them earlier, but thank you Jane, for letting me come and play. I've had one-and-a-half premieres this month, the obvious being Concerto. Grosso - the other 'half premiere' was Country Garden, as this was being dished-up for orchestra (as Grainger would say) for the first time. I went to Woking to see it and to re-learn the entrée in Raymonda which I was to perform the next night. I took along a very good friend that had also put up with me in Crewe. To my amazement, he stopped drinking in the interval just long enough to tell me to stop being nervous. I guess I was, but then I didn't know what state my "Garden" would be in with the new dancers and 20 musicians in it. Now here's the camp bit - it had bloomed. No seriously, I really enjoyed watching it. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that - they don't teach you how to cope with such feelings at Choreographer School; but I saw a group of excellent dancers beaming over a delicious score oozing from the pit. Until I saw this performance, I had been dreading dancing Raymonda. My mind had been other ballets (my own) and it takes a different sort of concentration to choreograph and stage works than it does to perform them. But the next night I danced in Raymonda and I enjoyed every minute of it and I'm still enjoying it. No nerves, no angst, just pure dancing for the sake of it. “Why this added freshness without the use of conditioner?”
Because after this season, I have decided to stop performing in order to concentrate on choreography. But that's another story….
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